Democrats hit the roof yesterday over President Bush’s plan to bounce the American Bar Association from its role as prime vetter of U.S. Supreme Court justices and other federal judges.

Bush’s counsel will meet with the ABA tomorrow and a U.S. official said the group will be told it can still consult along with other lawyers’ associations – but won’t be the prime vetter any more.

“A lot of groups would like to be involved. Why should they have this unique role?” the official said of the ABA, which many Republicans feel has a liberal, Democratic bias.

They contend the ABA proved its Democratic bias in 1999 when it honored then-President Bill Clinton as its keynote speaker just 11 days after he was fined for lying under oath about sex with Monica Lewinsky.

But Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Bush’s move to end the ABA’s semi-official screening role is a “sad and somewhat foolish” decision and “a real indication that they want to pick judges of the hard right.”

Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.), the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Schumer, who’s also on the panel, sent Bush a joint letter saying they’ll continue to consult the ABA no matter what Bush does.

They contended dumping the ABA, first reported yesterday in The New York Times, would bring ideology into the judicial-selection process and means “nominees will be inevitably be of lower quality.”

They also warned it could “delay Senate consideration of nominees” – a possible threat to stall the selection process in the Senate, which is split 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans.

Since 1952, the ABA has screened federal judicial nominees before they are formally announced by the president – in many cases, a less-than-favorable rating has nixed a potential selection before it became public.

The ABA played a central role in 1987 when it gave a split rating to Ronald Reagan’s nomination of Robert Bork for the Supreme Court – and helped lead to Bork’s defeat.

The bar group gave Bork its highest rating of “well-qualified,” but four of the 15 lawyers on the vetting panel rated him “not qualified” and one gave him the middle rating of “not opposed.”

It’s the latest instance where Bush has shown he’ll stick to his conservative principles despite the closeness of the 2000 vote – all through the campaign, he vowed to name strict constructionists judges.

Bush repeatedly praised the two most conservative Supreme Court justices, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, although he has pledged he won’t use an abortion litmus tests for his judicial picks.